Chance
by Ruerose
Summary: Kristine "Kris" Delcourt relives what she considers to be the greatest romantic adventure of her life via journal at the suggestion of her therapist.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not really sure if this will turn out well, but I haven't sat down and written for a decent amount of time since November, so here goes. **

07/07/2010

I've always found that a blank piece of paper holds the greatest amount of hope in existence, yet still somehow manages to be one of the greatest obstacles in my life. My name is Kristine "Kris" Delcourt, and I believe that a blank piece of paper will always be my best friend and my worst enemy.

Why, you ask?

Because here I sit, after tackling four years of college and the strangest of romantic encounters, and I can't even write it down.

Should I start from the beginning? That's what Ms. Cathleen Aberson said; she's my therapist. But you see, I'm not really sure what the "beginning" is. Do I start when my mother died? Or maybe I should begin later, with my best friend's wedding.

What defines a beginning anyways? For all I know, the events of the past few months were set in motion long before I realized. Is a beginning the place things honestly and truly start, or is a beginning based on when a certain person realizes what is going on?

For me, the moment that stands out the most as a beginning is a random day in the middle of last summer. That was when I started noticing things. I would go for a walk and nonchalantly look over my shoulder to find sunglass-clad figures looming a short distance away. I'd become suspicious of ice cream trucks and drive-through attendants for reasons that were, at the time, rather unreasonable.

On the first Monday in August, I was off to my seventeenth job interview that week when I got the phone call. You know that kind of phone call. It's the kind of phone call that sends your world crashing down around you in a matter of seconds. It's the kind of phone call that makes your head spin and your heart stop beating. It's the kind of phone call that interrupts an interview to send you spiraling into despair.

My neighbor, a sweet old lady named Mrs. Nadine, had walked over to my house to ask my mother for a cup of sugar, which she does nearly every Monday. She just walked in out of habit to find Mother sprawled on the couch drenched in her own vomit. Turned out that she had drunk herself past the point of an average human's tolerance level. To this day, I have no idea why. Mother was rushed to the hospital via uber-fast ambulance, but even uber-fast wasn't fast enough, I guess.

By the time I got to the hospital, step-dad-three was there with a folder of official-looking papers and an almost-empty box of tissues. Apparently he was there for the rigorous CPR they performed on Mother, and he was there for the doctor to give the bad news to. She was beyond rescue. Nothing could have kept her alive.

I almost felt bad for step-dad-three.

Two days after the hospital, we had a funeral. Mother didn't really know anyone who was willing to come to a funeral, to be honest. She had her drinking buddies, but they were either too hung-over to come, or they really didn't care. Mother didn't work either – she lost her job around the time step-dad-three rolled around – so it was essentially just me, step-dad-three, and Mrs. Nadine. One or two neighbors stopped by with casseroles and half-baked condolences. I left a daisy on her grave and went home.

I think I'll stop there for today.

**I'm posting this as a story because I like the idea. Please review? Let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

07/08/10

Cathleen says I need to talk about Mother more. To directly quote her, I "need to delve deep into the dark recesses of the relationship and analyze it in order to better overcome grief." While I think that it is utterly pointless, I promised I would behave, so today's topic is Mother.

I know it sounds like she's an irresponsible, good-for-nothing drunk, but she wasn't like that before. And by "before," I mean pre-step-dad(s). When I was younger, Mother was your average, cookie-cutter, all-American housewife. She married her high school sweetheart at the blossoming age of eighteen and settled down with the dream of having two point five children, a dog and a cat, and a two-story white house with red shutters.

When that didn't happen, she settled for me, Daddy, and a turtle named Turtle. Still, even though she didn't really get what she wanted, she was still happy. She still made homemade birthday cakes and sang lullabies and wore an apron all the time. She was still normal, and she was the version of Mother that I miss the most.

When I was nine, Daddy got lung cancer. As it turns out, once upon a time he was the bad-boy-on-campus, skip-school-to-smoke kind of guy. For some reason, it was a kind of lung cancer that could neither be removed nor treated. It killed him off before his hair started turning gray. I don't know much more than that; Mother refused to talk about it.

So after Daddy died, Mother wasn't all that great. She still made cakes and wore an apron, but she wouldn't sing songs even when I asked her. She never smiled, and many times I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of her sobbing.

This went on until I was ten and three quarters, when I came home from school one day to a plate of warm and gooey chocolate chip cookies and an equally warm, if not as gooey, smile. As I munched away on those cookies, I remember hearing those words. "I'm getting married. You're getting a new Daddy." That and a smile.

The wedding was a week later at the town courthouse. Mother wore a velvety blue dress and lots of makeup. Step-dad-one, whose name was Steve, was not like my Daddy. He was short and round and smelled of cheese. But for the two years Mother was married to him, she was back to normal. I, however, was not.

I'd like to say that I maintained the majority of how I was before Daddy's death, but I stopped sports and piano lessons simply because Daddy was not there. I got new friends who wouldn't look at me like I was a sad, pitiful thing. And when step-dad-one stepped into the picture, I did things simply to make Mother mad. I broke things and tore things, I snuck out at night, I did anything that would make her mad just so I could give her a taste of her own medicine. It aggravated Steve, too. To this day, I think I am the main reason he left after two years.

Once step-dad-one was out of the picture, Mother got a job bussing tables at a diner down the street. Luckily, our house was paid off, and Daddy had a lot of money saved up, so we got by until Mother met Paul.

Paul, I think, was the reason Mother started drinking. Paul was a vile man who loved to ride his motorcycle. One of his long-lost relatives had recently left him an astonishing inheritance, so he could afford to crash on the couch all day drinking beer and watching wrestling tournaments. He yelled a lot, too. He never laid a finger on either of us, which is good, but the sound of step-dad-two blowing his top was enough to scare anyone.

Eventually Mother lost her job at the diner and took a three month break during which she did absolutely nothing save drink herself into a stupor each evening. It wasn't just beer like Paul; it was everything from vodka to whiskey, anything that served as a means to an end. To this day I'm not really sure what made her start functioning again, but I am thankful for whatever it was. She got a job in an insurance firm as a secretary and seemed to clean up a bit.

When I was sixteen, Paul died in a tragic motorcycle accident. Mother had to identify him by various half-charred tattoos. While it was still a blow for Mother, she wasn't nearly as affected as she was with Daddy's death. But still, yet another little part of her broke that day, just another piece of her nothing could fix.

Mother met step-dad-three at the law firm two weeks after Paul died. Step-dad-three, Franklin, is the most like my Daddy. Franklin eats half a slice of toast and a soft boiled egg for breakfast every day. He always talks with laughter in his eyes and is one of the best defense lawyers in our state (according to Mother, of course). Franklin took care of Mother, and he even adopted me.

He's a good man. He fixed Mother up a lot. He even made her stay home like she used to; no more working till all hours. Neither of us could have possibly guessed that her drinking would come back. Franklin has been really depressed the past few days. I think he really loved her, and maybe Mother didn't know that.

I don't feel like writing anything else today. Too many memories.

**I think I like how this is coming along… Let me know what you think!**


	3. Chapter 3

07/09/10

Cathleen gave me permission to call her Cathy. This portion of our most recent conversation was immediately followed by her telling me that I needed to stop dilly-dallying with these journals. So I'll stop beating around the bush now.

Two months after Mother died, Franklin and I slipped into a sort of routine. I'd like to say the house felt empty without Mother, but it'll always feel the same to me, regardless of her. The only time it changed was when Daddy left.

Anyways, one day I decided to break the routine. Don't ask me why; it was more an act of impulse than anything, really. And it was extremely simple. Normally Franklin and I take a walk together after dinner, before it gets dark but after the temperature cools down a bit. We never talk, never even acknowledge each other's presence; we just walk. That day I took a walk by myself.

Looking back, I'm almost glad. I'd rather relive what happened a thousand times over than monotonously trudge on without allowing anything to happen.

So, to continue, I took a walk before supper, when Franklin was still at work. The sky was overcast but the air was warm, almost humid. I put in my headphones and walked without considering where I was going. My feet took me to a road I didn't recognize in a place as unfamiliar as Saturn.

I couldn't remember the way back home, and I didn't have my phone with me, as I hadn't planned on walking that far. There was no one around to ask for directions. So I pointed myself in what I hoped was the right direction and started walking.

I remember hearing a mockingbird and seeing a broken branch at the foot of a tree. After that… I don't know what happened.

Cathy and the men from the police department always get mad at me for not remembering. I'm told, over and over, that I need to remember, I have to remember, I MUST remember! But there is nothing to remember. Just… darkness. Complete, utter, suffocating darkness.

It's time for dinner. We'll see what Cathy wants me to write tomorrow!

**I know this is short, and I'm sorry, but the next few will probably be short as well due to a major project I am currently working on for school.**


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